


the crooked kind

by softerEpilogue



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softerEpilogue/pseuds/softerEpilogue
Summary: Allison: Warning SignsRenee: Passing It On(A series of brief character studies)
Kudos: 3





	1. Allison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison, the night of the Exy banquet.
> 
> cw: major character death (past), brief mention of disordered eating

The dress is bright as a warning sign— McQueen. Pre-fall 2018. Blood red and Fox orange, with leather detailing that when she slips it on will feel like armor fitting close to her chest. Seth would have laughed at her, for that. Some armor, he'd sneer, plucking derisively at the flared sleeves. 

_Seth._

She pushes the thought away. She's already done her makeup. No sense in crying now. If she even could— she’s cried enough the last few weeks that she’s not sure there’s anything left. 

The dress, though. It’s hanging in its garment bag, on the edge of a locker in the Breckinridge changing room. She's never worn this one; she sticks to softer silhouettes, normally, to balance out the hard lines of muscle that she's worked for. She's not ashamed of it; she's bled and sweated and been disowned for them, and she'll be damned if she makes herself smaller for anyone anymore. 

She might not be a size zero like she used to be, but she also eats and trains like the athlete she is, now. The "delicately emaciated" look that her prep school friends favored is a recipe for injuries and losses on the court, and if there's one thing Allison Reynolds hates more than anything (even wet hair and chipped polish and condescending fucks who think that just because she's blonde and pretty she's _stupid_ ), it's loosing. She is Allison fucking Reynolds, and she does not fade into the background. 

She takes an angry kind of pride in this body of hers; the pride would surprise no one who has met her, with her expertly applied makeup and carefully chosen clothing. The anger might. The world might be crashing down around her ears, but that doesn’t mean she has to let the dust stick to her clothes. 

She swipes on her lipstick. Checks for chips in her manicure, not that it would do much good now, in the locker room, five minutes from the banquet. Her nails are shorter than she'd like, baby pink and almond shaped, like her first dance teacher’s. Not ideal, but then again, a broken acrylic hurts like a bitch, and Exy is a contact sport. She does not need stiletto talons to have claws. (And gouging is banned on the court, anyway. Not that it's stopped the Monsters, but she'd like to think that she's above them on that front.) She dabs another touch of perfume on her wrists, the hollow of her throat. Looks herself in the eyes in the mirror of the locker room. Dan and Renee chatter casually behind her and she wants to _scream_. 

But she doesn’t. 

She will be as calm as the sea around her favorite resort. She builds it around herself in her mind, sinks her feet into the sugar-white sand, feels the sun on her shoulders. Watches the blindingly blue water ripple out onto the horizon. She thinks, for a second, that she hears his voice in the waves. Which is stupid, because he hates the beach. Hated. He sunburned too easily.

She pulls the dress out of the bag, and the skirt swirls wonderfully, like it had on the runway, knife pleats fanning out and flowing like water. 

She takes a deep breath, in-one-two-three, hold, out-one-two-three. 

She steps into the dress. Pulls up the zip, careful to not catch her hair. 

The heavy silk of the bodice closes around her. (Some armor, Seth’s voice whispers.) She ignores him, pulls her shoulders back. Straightens her spine. The dress hangs better that way. 

She blots at her lipstick again, and tries out a smile in the mirror. 

It turns out as more of a grimace, really.


	2. Renee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Renee, the night she rescues Jean.
> 
> (will be edited and probably extended later)
> 
> cw: knives, Christianity

There is no knife that cuts like grace. Renee Walker knows this better than most people. 

She knows , intimately, how a knife hurts. How sometimes, adrenaline can hit harder than any painkiller, and you do not realize that you are bleeding until much later, when you see the blood. 

Grace, she has learned, has no such dulling effect. Like a knife sinking into your back it is not always what you deserve. That’s rather the point, Stephanie Walker had explained to her, when she'd given her a new home and a new name and Renee had asked Why?

“If you always got what you deserve, you wouldn’t be a fox.” Neil had said. 

She had offered, once, to teach him to fight properly with knives. She does not pretend that Natalie does not still exist somewhere inside of her, ready with flat eyes and sharp steel to defend what she must. Part of the processes of forgiveness, she has learned, is to learn how to look at yourself (to look at Natalie Shields, ten and twelve and fourteen and scared and then in pain and then cold) and say, I forgive you for what you did to survive. She does not need the knives anymore; These sharp bright things that held her to the world are meaningless when she compares them to her faith and her family.

So when her phone rings, late at night after they have gotten Neil back and are all together in the vacation rental (she refuses to call it a cabin, no matter what Allison says), and Jean’s number flashes on the screen, she does not reach for the knife that Andrew didn’t take. She tries not to be the kind of person who would need it, anymore, but with a past like hers, it would be foolish not to have it. Her hands itch for her old knives for just a moment, when she hears Jean’s voice, the ragged edges in it that only come from screaming. 

She touches her cross, deliberately, and takes the knife out of her pocket. Slides it under her pillow so it won’t tempt her. And then she goes and borrows Andrew’s car, and sets off to return Stephanie’s favor.


End file.
